This invention relates to "host books" with a fixed or variable number of pages including spiral bound note books, multi-ring bound books, staple-, tape-, or glue-bound books, plastic finger clasp bound books, and the like, add-in leaves in the form of mounting surfaces with additional pages, and particularly, a repositionable mounting surface with a fold-out feature. The add-in components act as a mechanical means for adding "a window system to the host object" and may be configured from a set of building blocks. Entirely new information handling metaphors may be developed from the add-in components in the form of books as well as other objects. The other objects would be objects typically used for representing and accessing information, such as calendars, record keeping devices and the like. In addition to "host books" of the conventional variety, this invention relates to electronic notebooks of the notebook and palm size, which themselves may have software/electronic window systems.
The invention further relates to toys and games and the use of the configurable add-in window system parts as knowledge processing objects for store and order scripting. The toys and games may be mechanical in composition or may rely on a host object with electronic information handling properties. The host object may itself have a software/electronic window system of its own.
Host books are typically sold in a variety of forms including glue- or tape-bound with cover, staple-bound with cover, spiral-bound with cover, and ring-bound with cover. They may have a fixed or variable number of pages or no pages, and the pages may be blank pages, pages with text or pictures, where the text may be formatted or unformatted. Typically, host books with pages that are intended for writing or which contain text and or pictures in any form do not easily allow for the insertion of notes, except for use of margins, specially identified format blocks, or spaces between lines or pictures. Arbitrary notes must be taken on loose pages which themselves can be retained in the host book in a variety of ways as marks. Host pages that have pre-defined formats support structured entry of information but often do not support arbitrary input or output notes very well.
Host books have pages which are typically bound in a sequential order. If the pages can be repositioned, it requires opening of the binding and the removal and reinsertion of the pages to be repositioned. Tagging these pages or marking them for reentry requires (a) folding the page, (b) placing a loose mark in the page which could fall out, or (c) binding a mark that attaches to the page and stays on the page unless physically removed and replaced at another point. Noting or marking in this way either damages the book or covers the written material. Additionally, this type of marking does not easily allow for the continuous collection of information on the mark as the mark is moved through successive pages.
Electronic, computer-based text has been developed which can be accessed on-line via a personal computer or through a shared information utility and which addresses the issue of flexible information manipulation. The basic technology is known as hypermedia, and specifically, as it relates to textual information, hypertext. This capability provides the individual the ability to attach new information to any context he or she is working with, and to view that portion or chunk of specially tagged information out of context from its location in relation to other such specially tagged information, or in context with its location in the body of the text. In this sense, "hyper-access" means that one may view the tagged information dynamically out of context as well as in relationship to the source item or items. The mechanism provided for viewing information on the computer is known as "multiple-windowing". This feature has proven very powerful and has opened up entirely new applications for computers in desktop publishing, computer-aided design, project management, and the like.
This capability of multiple windowing has been unavailable to users of blank books due to the inherent limitation of physically bound surfaces and their supporting bindings. The lack of windows in conventional books has made the context-independent access of information available only through the limited means of fold-out pages.
Previously known add-in page systems do not offer the important feature of windows, the key feature of which is the ability to maintain the face and perimeter orientations of the add-in surface in all of its possible context-independent, floating positions.
Other add-in facilities that may offer additional writing surfaces offer limited positioning of the surface, restricting the add-in to the front or the back of the book and restricting the interleaving of the surface with other surfaces the book may itself hold. Other add-in facilities assist in the page turning process but do not offer any additional facilities for note-taking. The previous alternatives that suggest the use of a frame use dual-arm frames that enclose the entire host object in a brace. That approach is cumbersome and unnatural for the host object and represents an obstruction for the user. Additionally, the frames of that variety add additional weight to the host and in the case of books, obstruct multiple indexing. Multiple indexing involves the indexing of a plurality of edges of the host books leaves.
In the case of notebook- and palm-size computers, the window system is restricted to the size of the screen the host electronic device contains. In the smaller sized notebook- and palm-sized computers, this visual space is restrictive and does not enable a plurality of contexts to be viewed at one time.
Furthermore, in the case of books, configurability is usually limited to forms and add-in leaves. Forms presume the structure of the information that is to be collected and the way in which it is to be collected. Books of this type do not reflect the information map of the user's mind, the frequency of access to certain types of information, the time value of that information, or the linking of that information to other information of related properties. These types of books offer limited robustness, typically providing ring mechanisms for extending the information architecture of the book. They require eye, hand, and mind to restructure or prepare for access, often interrupting the dynamics of the capture-and-represent process of information handling. Books have not been able to provide users with facilities comparable to the interactive windows of computers, limiting the development of an appetite for non-linear information handling among users of conventional books. Computer vendors have been unable to offer users the familiar metaphor of a page, requiring the user to process information in metaphorical window pages. The thinking and learning process is facilitated by the combined use of the eye and the hand. Although the mouse has offered a very large advantage in this area, the page turning metaphors that have been offered mirror the use of a page of a conventional book in a similar but much more limited way and do not adequately reflect the visual/manual restructuring of knowledge inherent in solutions like the mouse.
Toys and game scripting metaphors exist to facilitate the process of a game. These tools are often game-constrained--i.e. offer utility only in relation to the game itself--or, if useful outside of the game, do not support knowledge-intensive activities. Dice are an important gaming metaphor but do not assist the user in a robust knowledge-specific fashion. A blank drawing pad and pencil can be used in creative ways in both games and the real world, but do not offer sufficient robustness in the sense being discussed here. Currently, there are no known puzzles or games that allow for the use of functionally equivalent, let alone identical, tools of the nature of the present invention, within the game and outside in real life. Specifically, tools that can function in a similar fashion, being directed at deeper, multiple-level inferencing, and knowledge-based information processing in both the game and in the real world application. Games and toys exist where the ideas are useful in multiple realms, but not the actual physical object that the game is played with. An excellent example of a case where the object of the invention can be used in both environments is LOGO.COPYRGT.. The physical metaphor, when made available, is a moving object which offers body syntonic learning opportunities, but the object itself is not typically intended for use outside of the game. Making the LOGO.COPYRGT. object a robot or a factory system begins to bridge this gap of utility. However, although computers offer promise in this area, i.e., where the computer is played as a game and then used as a device, computers are limited in availability, expensive, and suffer from the lack of broadly useful eye-hand metaphors as discussed earlier.